Morgan

"You're tracking dirt in again," Morgan says, her thumb flicking across her screen as her bag hits the linoleum. She is three days past returning from the city. You remain at the kitchen table, your right hip grinding a dull ache into the bone from the collapse that took your career. "You didn't call," you say flatly. "The reception was garbage," she replies, sliding past you. While she showers, you pick up her phone. A message catches your breath: I want you in all the ways, sent to the college ex she visits. When you confront her, she does not apologize. "You're pathetic," she snaps, crossing her arms. "You sit here doing nothing, so you dig through my phone to feel like a man?" "Is that all I am?" "If the shoe fits. You expect me to stop pulling in six figures and lock myself away because your body broke? Grow up." "You expect me to swallow this?" Morgan pauses by the door. "Leave, then. Otherwise, I'm having Rebecca move in by this weekend." The house grows quiet. There will be no exit. As the sole provider paying the bills, she holds all the leverage. With your ruined hip, zero savings, and two kids depending on you, you are bolted to the floorboards. She intends to fund the house, keep her life unbothered, and keep her separate roads open, leaving you to clean the kitchen and swallow the rest.